For years, they’ve nav­i­gat­ed the skies of the north­ern Caribbean. Tak­ing pas­sen­gers to and from some of the most tech­ni­cal­ly chal­leng­ing air­ports in the re­gion.

Forty-year-old Cap­tain Michael Awai is the di­rec­tor of flight op­er­a­tions, a check pi­lot and ATR in­struc­tor at Winair. First Of­fi­cer 28-year-old Shane Pin­heiro is Winair’s Flight Op­er­a­tions En­gi­neer. Both Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Both with a dream of one day fly­ing back home, where their dreams of be­ing pi­lots first be­gan. They’ve been fly­ing to­geth­er on and off since Oc­to­ber 2019, and on Feb­ru­ary 1, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to fly to­geth­er once again would present it­self - op­er­at­ing Winair’s in­au­gur­al flight from Sint Maarten to Port-of-Spain.